George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives. Renowned as being the "Father of Railways", the Victorians considered him a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement, with self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praising his achievements. His rail gauge of 4 feet 81⁄2 inches (1,435 mm), sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", is the world's standard gauge.
Read more about George Stephenson: Early Life, The Miners' Safety Lamp, Early Locomotives, Stockton and Darlington Railway, Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Stephenson's Skew Arch Bridge, Later Career, Personal Life, Legacy
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“Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.”
—17th century English proverb, collected in George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640)
“Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)